Ingestible Computers

Today I had the opportunity to be a guest on over a dozen Fox News Radio affiliates around the county to discuss the topic of the “password pill.”

These tiny, ingestible “smart pills” may be making their way to a pharmacy near you as early as next year.  These traveling sensors are in the form of pills which are swallowed and then powered on by stomach acid.  They transmit low frequency signals to a wearable patch and then a smart phone app.  The pill passes through the body in about 24 hours and can then be recycled!  Eeww!  Several companies are making these in various forms including a consumer version that would send information to your cell phone.

The technology is already FDA approved.  In fact, astronauts have been using these for years to help monitor vital health indicators.  We can expect the technology to be main stream for consumers by next year.

For medical applications, this would enable sending real-time data about health conditions and effectiveness of medications directly to your doctor.

For password or authentication applications, the “password pill” can act as a form of strong authentication where YOU become a form of a password.  This provides stronger security than something you know or something you have (and can be stolen or misplaced).

The benefits of this technology are many:

• Corporations can more easily monitor who is on their premises
• Corporations can prevent hacking into critical systems
• Doctors can monitor a patient’s response to medication
• Alerts can be sent if critical patients are in trouble
• You can send your own vitals to your cell phone during a workout
• People in high risk jobs can be monitored for safety (soldiers in battle or firefighters on the job)
• A high school football player could be monitored to prevent heatstroke during workouts
• Consumers could perform everyday functions more conveniently (unlocking doors, logging into computers)

And then there are the scary implications:

• Can the technology be properly safeguarded to stop hacking or cloning?
• If not securely encrypted,  now someone may have your authentication method
• Regarding privacy concerns, now that the data is available, who can get to it and what will they do with it?
• Will the government or health insurance companies require (or secretly monitor) details about your physical activity, smoking, drinking, or other things you may be ingesting?
• Or my kids’ favorite — Someone could just kidnap you and take you to the ATM!

The topic provided for some entertaining and sobering discussion with talk show hosts across the country.  As technology advances at a rapid pace, especially in the area of security, we will continue to struggle to stay ahead of the probable unintended consequences both legally and morally.

Read more:

http://www.businessinsider.com/privacy-problems-with-password-pills-2013-6#ixzz2XRXgLmqc

http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/16799/20130624/daily-smart-pill-passwords-computer-authentication-ingestible-computing-technology.htm